Position
Master in MEEN, Texas A&M, 2018 – 2020
CAST Lab
Contact Info
Project/Thesis
I’m D.J. Franklin, and I started working in the C.A.S.T. lab during the summer before my senior year at A&M for my Engineering Honors undergrad research project, where I worked on system identification of the longitudinal dynamics of an autonomous RC car. After I graduated with my B.S. in mechanical engineering in Spring 2018, I stayed with the C.A.S.T. lab for my M.S. in mechanical engineering. I worked on the Hard Truck Platooning (HTP) project for my master’s thesis.
I made a 2D rigid body simulation of a platoon of 2 semi trucks in Simulink and simulated HTP using a feedback linearization control strategy. I guided a senior design team to design and fabricate a prototype tow bar, and with Mike Ashley’s help we ran a preliminary test on full-scale semi trucks to test the strength of the tow bar.